Comments on: GEORGE HARRISON – “My Sweet Lord”

By: Jimmy the Swede

Jimmy the Swede — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:56:39 +0000

Of course Scorsese’s done a bio movie on George, the London premier attended by Macca and Ringo. I don’t suppose it will mention the game of poker Harrison claimed he had with God, though. George thought that the Creator was bluffing:

The Almighty: “Come on George. It’s up to you. What are you gonna do?”
Harrison: “I really want to see you, Lord.”

Swede. Coat.

By: punctum

punctum — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:19:28 +0000

Extended thoughts on All Things Must Pass:

http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2010/05/george-harrison-all-things-must-pass.html

By: pink champale

pink champale — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:27:20 +0000

i can’t believe lennon never told him to f*** off

By: Erithian

Erithian — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:03:28 +0000

Nice little story in the Metro freesheet yesterday from Brian Cox, of D:Ream and Large Hadron Collider bizarre career path fame:

Q: What was your defining moment as a pop star?
A: I was once in a band called Dare. After a gig one night we were sat at a bar and our keyboard player saw this guy pushing in so he told him to f*** off. It was George Harrison. George said: ‘I haven’t been told to f*** off since 1965,’ and was so impressed he bought us all a drink.

By: orkney

orkney — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:01:46 +0000

Took 30 years. If that isn’t a long time how old are you? lol And the writer of the Chiffons bubblegum song should be thanking his sweet Lord that he made money from this fabulous song.

By: Waldo

Waldo — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:46:13 +0000

“I really want to see you, Lord?”

Well, it didn’t “take so long” after all, did it George?

By: Chris Brown

Chris Brown — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 18:13:21 +0000

I’ve hesitated on pitching into this one, because I’ve never been entirely able to quantify how much I actually like this – I don’t think it’s a particular highlight of the album, and yet the instinctive affection I have for George’s music seems to make me feel more warmly towards this than I really ought to. Possibly also it’s a song I can respect and understand more than enjoy.
I was struck last night by the comparison with ‘Hey Jude’; I can’ imagine that he was consciously trying to emulate it, but it does sound like ‘My Sweet Lord’ is trying to launch into a big ecstatic chorus with the “Hallelujah/Hare Krishna” bit but it doesn’t entirely work. At least it fails to work for a shorter space of time though.

On the resurrection side, I think ‘Some Fantastic Place’ by Squeeze might owe something to this. And will the 918th get its own entry?

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:34:24 +0000

I wonder if in retrospect this created a conundrum for George as a solo artist who was a person of sincere faith: once you’ve hit #1 with a song about God, what’s the follow-up single? By definition, it almost has to be downhill from there.

Follow-up was “Bangla Desh” which only got to number ten so downhill is about right.

By: mms

mms — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:16:46 +0000

7 seems about right to me. Worth mentioning his guest appearance on Eric Idle and Neil Innes’s Rutland Weekend Television where he starts to perform My Sweet Lord but starts singing lyrics of how he wished he’d been a pirate and “sailed the BBC”.

By: wwolfe

wwolfe — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:34:33 +0000

“Paperback Writer” is a very funny book. That and the Ruttles are easily the best histories of the Beatles. (Plus, on a more serious note, “The Hours and the Times,” a too-little known movie about the weekend that John and Brian spent in Barcelona just before Beatlemania broke.)

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 18:35:17 +0000

Erith – Well at least we can thank it for that. As for the slide guitar – he should have asked Dave Edmunds ;-)

By: Erithian

Erithian — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:53:14 +0000

Number 2 Watch: George held off the Mixtures’ Pushbike Song.

By: Erithian

Erithian — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:52:00 +0000

Have any of you read Mark Shipper’s “Paperback Writer”, a spoof Beatles history published in 1978? Its humour largely derives from playing around with the well-known chronology of the Fabs’ story, so for instance in 1963 the boys are touring with Del Shannon and George plays Del one of the songs about God he tried to get onto the “Please Please Me” LP. “That’s pretty good,” says Del, “but it sounds a bit like that song by the Chiffons last year…”

Elsewhere a footnote reveals that “Love Me Do” only got as high as number 17 in the chart because of the rumour that if you play it backwards John can be heard in the background chanting “Paul is dead”.

I’ll leave you to track down the book and enjoy its denouement, the Beatles’ disastrous reunion tour third on the bill below Peter Frampton and the Sex Pistols…

By: wwolfe

wwolfe — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:11:43 +0000

On the day the “unconscious plagiarism” verdict was announced, I walked from my college dormitory to a local record store, where I bought a copy of “He’s So Fine.” Having never heard it, I was curious to see if there was any real similarity between the older song and George’s. ‘Very surprised’ would be an accurate, if understated, description of my reaction.

The next day on my college radio show, I played the two back-to-back without editorial comment, just so people could decide for themselves. Being a very tiny college (900 students), most everyone knew most everyone else, so for the next couple of days, people stopped me to say, “They sound exactly alike!” A few added that they liked the Chiffons’ song more. (A few years later, I repeated the experiment with my mom, who also agreed with the verdict on both the plagiarism and the relative quality of “He’s So Fine,” I was happy to find.)

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:14:48 +0000

erik one place to start is maybe by treating his sitar-work as proto-slide? (so not yet the “voice” you’re talking abt, but the dawn of the idea of the voice?)

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 09:44:04 +0000

Like a Marvel Comics team-up! (The secret comics connections of ALL 70S POP – another comments box theme)

By: Anthony

Anthony — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 08:27:26 +0000

ive always thot this was profoundly unsettled, the krsna rounds a kind of way to subvert, and not handle the implications of both xianity and the expereinces with the marishi.

i also like it b/c it allows for a syncopation b/w krsna and christ, which seems v. 60s, why cant we all get along mysticism, but the two messiahs working together seems rarer, and here it gives me hope

By: Erik

Erik — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:26:43 +0000

Without having the recording in my ears, this is the first track in George’s chronology (in my mind) where the slide guitar sound is the clearly identifiable “george” slide sound, as heard on his later tunes and the Traveling Wilburys tunes. I keep meaning to go back through the Beatles tunes on a “George slide sound” safari. I know his slide playing when I hear it, but I can’t think of it on any Beatles tunes. It would be interesting (to me, at least) that George found a recognizable instrumental voice only after he left the Beatles. Maybe someone can list their favorite George slide guitar Beatles moments, since I’m trapped at work without music.

By: sonali

sonali — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:55:27 +0000

caramel for fatty

By: intothefireuk

intothefireuk — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 22:31:41 +0000

Like the acoustic guitar loathe the lead which I feel is the most irritating aspect of this production. It also goes on for far too long. Echoing an earlier comment I too find that once its stated its case it then meanders along without really adding anything. At the time this was tantamount to being accosted by a Krishna gang bearing dodgy LPs by artists who you’ve never heard of. 7 is generous.

By: Jack Fear

Jack Fear — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:33:31 +0000

blount: [[ harrison’s vocals ... to my ears sound like a guy on the way to a girl’s house, wondering what he’ll say to her when he gets there, whether he’ll manage to get it right; definitely feels more working mantra or a turning over of a puzzle in one’s head than exclamation or psalm ]]

And here I thought that was kind of the point. It’s not really a song of ecstasy; it’s a song of yearning, just this side of anguish—I want to know You, I want to see You, I want to be with You, but it takes so long—of the soul’s longing for union with the godhead, and how distant and impossible it seems.

There’s fear in the voice; Harrison always sounded spooked, and never moreso than here. The unspoken terror behind the song is, “What if I’m found not worthy?” The same question you’d ask yourself on the way to your would-be girlfriend’s house, really, but on a much larger scale.

I read somewhere, years ago, that during concerts by the late great Pakistani devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, some listeners were thrown into such a religious frenzy that they would bang their heads against the edge of the stage, actually hoping to die; they were homesick for Heaven. That’s the vibe I get from “My Sweet Lord,” with Harrison playing both sides of the equation: the backing voices and the guitar are the sounds of Heaven, and the lead vocal is the human soul, lonely and confused.

I mean, it’s not entirely successful, but I give it marks for the ambition of the schema.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:19:27 +0000

Not to my knowledge, but both Nina Simone and Bobby Womack have recorded covers of “Everyone’s Gone To The Moon.”

By: Alan Connor

Alan Connor — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:12:31 +0000

Ta MC. Maybe I will get that JK boxset after all. I wonder if he’s ever been included in those po-faced-looking plunderphonics curations?

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 12:00:34 +0000

The JK one was the other way around; the Chiffons lyrics over the George backing track.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:59:07 +0000

Also, lest we forget, the first solo Beatle number one in Britain, prompting much talk at the time about The Quiet One stealing a lead on John ‘n’ Paul &c.